History

The studio has been part of the renowned Bristol animation scene since it was established in 1985.

Originally known as A for Animation, the team quickly established a reputation for creative and high quality work, producing animated graphic sequences, commercials and titles for broadcast clients nationwide. The studio’s reputation soon spread, and by the 90′s they were working for a range of leading international clients.

The studio was also now working closely with lots of other studios, Aardman, Animation City, Cosgrove Hall, Will Vinton and others, and soon higher profile work started to arrive. Promos for Madonna, Rod Stewart & Elton John followed and commercials work on brands like Cuprinol, Chewitts, Domestos, Rice Krispies, increased. There was a whole range of title sequences including prestigious shows like ‘Antiques Roadshow’ ‘The First Eden’ ‘Playbus’ (and lets not forget ‘The Grumbleweeds’ for Granada!) and lots more.

By now the studio was branching out into more character-based animation, picking up service work on several series.In 1992 we secured our first original IP series commission, 26 x 10 minute episodes of the Alexei Sayle voiced ‘Rubbish…King of the Jumble!’ for CITV. The success of this series led to the Disney Channel commissioning the studio to work on ‘Amazing Animals’, animating over 160 interstitials over 4 series of the popular wildlife series.

We went digital about this time, with ANIMO ink & paint technology being introduced, Flash and 3Ds Max also becoming part of the studio portfolio alongside the traditional 2D drawn work and stop frame animation.

One of our first ANIMO projects was the 50 minute special for Harper Collins ‘The village with three corners’ – a mixture of 2D, stop frame and digital animation.
We were also asked to work on the popular CITV series ‘Dog & Duck’ for United, designing, creating and animating short story sections & interstitials for the show. We worked closely with Aardman again, this time helping to create the story reel for the feature film, ‘Chicken Run’.

Before long Elstree based Tell-tale Productions commissioned A for Animation to provide all the animation sequences for a new CBeebies show called ‘The Tweenies’ This lead to us working closely with Tell-tale for several years over the whole 365 shows, designing & producing an eclectic range of animation, both in design and style, including extensive VFX and green screen work for what turned out to be a hugely successful and multi award winning children’s programme.

In 2000 the studio moved house to our current studio base, still in central Bristol. We chose to change our name to A Productions. Work continued with ads for Danish Bank ‘Nykredit’ and also for ‘Onken Yoghurt’.

We also provided service work for Cosgrove Hall on ‘Albie’, & started working with Oxford University Press on a series of 30 x 15 minute films.

In 2002 the close working relationship with Tell-tale Productions meant we worked with them again developing and producing ‘Boo!’ a 104 x 10 minute CG pre school show for CBBC. The show was a huge hit (nominated for a BAFTA in 2003) & was entirely produced in the UK, with teams in Bristol & Elstree.

Now firmly established as a ‘go to’ studio for long form production more series work arrived in the shape of ‘BB3B’ for CBBC, ‘Jim Jam and Sunny’ for CiTV and ’Dusty & Musty’ for HIT Entertainment.

Foundation TV also came calling, and we provided animation and VFX over several series of the popular show ‘Mister Maker’. We made ‘Frankenstein’s Cat’ for CBBC and Mackinnon and Saunders. (winning Pulcinella for “Best Children’s Show” at Cartoons On The Bay and “Best TV Show” at the BAF awards.)

2006 was the start of “Driver Dan’s Story Train’ a 104 x 11 minute CG pre school show for CBeebies. Created by Rebecca Elgar, A Productions developed and produced the show for 3Line Media & TwoFour54 in Abu Dhabi and it featured a unique mix of animation and green screen, with original stories and individually commissioned artwork in every episode.

More recently the studio produced 52 x 11 minutes of CG show ‘The Numtums’ for CBeebies and worked closely with Foundation on series 2 of “lets Play’ for Foundation TV.

This year has seen our short form series – The Totems, premiere on Sesame Studios, the new channel from Sesame Workshop in the U.S.